World Bank

The World Bank Group, founded in 1944, is "one of the world's largest sources of development assistance. The Bank, which provided US$19.5 billion in loans to its client countries in fiscal year 2002, is now working in more than 100 developing economies, bringing a mix of finance and ideas to improve living standards and eliminate the worst forms of poverty. For each of its clients, the Bank works with government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to formulate assistance strategies. Its country offices worldwide deliver the Bank's program in countries, liaise with government and civil society, and work to increase understanding of development issues.

"The World Bank is owned by more than 184 member countries whose views and interests are represented by a Board of Governors and a Washington-based Board of Directors. Member countries are shareholders who carry ultimate decision-making power in the World Bank.

"The Bank uses its financial resources, its highly trained staff, and its extensive knowledge base to individually help each developing country onto a path of stable, sustainable, and equitable growth. The main focus is on helping the poorest people and the poorest countries...."

From web site for the World Bank Group: http://www.worldbank.org/

Coal Project Plans
In 2007, World Bank President Robert Zoellick committed the lending institution to "significantly step up our assistance" to fight climate change through its loans. Instead, the World Bank increased its financing of fossil-fuel projects worldwide. One example is the coal-powered Tata Ultra Mega power plant in western India, a $4.14 billion project scheduled to go online in 2012. When it is fully operational, it will become one of the world's 50 largest greenhouse-gas emitters and "will emit more carbon dioxide annually than the nation of Tunisia," according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The World Bank decided to provide "$450 million in loans and guarantees for the project and also will buy a $50 million stake in it." At the same time the U.S. insisted that developing countries cut greenhouse gas emissions, the World Bank -- over which it has tremendous influence -- supported projects that do the opposite. "The World Bank's lending record does not match up to Zoellick's rhetoric," says Heike Mainhardt-Gibbsof the Bank Information Center, a World Bank watchdog group. "The institution is simply not slowing down its significant funding to fossil-fuel projects that will emit greenhouse gases for 20 to 40 years."

In September 2010, the World Bank reported that US $3.4 billion ($3.6 billion) - or a quarter of all funding for energy projects - was spent from January to June 2010 helping build new coal-fired power stations, including the controversial Medupi Coal Plant in South Africa. This was record sums into coal by the World Bank, despite international commitments to slash the carbon emissions causing climate change. Over the same period the bank also spent US $1 billion on looking and drilling for oil and gas. The Bank Information Centre, which examined the spending, said the figure invested in coal was actually US $4.4 billion, due to the World Bank not including in its figure a US $1 billion project in India which is funding power transmission networks for coal-fired power stations rather than the stations themselves. Environmental campaign groups said spending on coal in that period was 40 times more than five years ago, and said there was an incoherence at the heart of the World Bank's thinking about energy that would damage long-term attempts to cut emissions of carbon.

A 2011 Friends of the Earth Report, "Catalysing catastrophic climate change: The World Bank’s role in dirty energy investment and carbon markets" notes that, in 2010, the Bank hit a new record in terms of its fossil fuel funding, totaling US$6.6 billion, a 116% increase over 2009. US$4.4 billion of this total was invested in coal, also a record high, and a 356% increase over the previous year. From 2007 until November 2010, the World Bank provided US$6.5 billion for coal-based energy development, primarily in middle-income countries, "locking them into coal use for the next 40 to 50 years and making their eventual shift to low carbon economies much more difficult and expensive" (p. 6).

2010 report finds WB oil/coal projects do not help poor
A 2010 report by Oil Change International, World Bank Group Energy Financing: Energy for the Poor? released on the eve of the World Bank's Annual Meetings, found that World Bank support for coal and oil projects does not increase access to energy for the world's poorest. The report found that only 9 percent of Bank energy sector lending actually went to support basic needs or productive uses in communities that lacked access to energy. Many of the energy projects had no clear targets for the energy produced, while other projects went expressly to energy projects for industrial uses (often for export), or to add power to existing grid systems without the specific purpose of increasing access.

The finding challenged government, Bank, and industry claims that taxpayer support for large coal and oil projects is the path to alleviating energy poverty. The World Bank has used arguments about increasing energy access – providing energy to the 1.4 billion people who lack access to electricity or the 2.7 billion still using wood or biomass for cooking and heating – to justify the approval of massive new coal-fired power plants like the Eskom Plant in South Africa, as well as the continued funding of oil projects. Yet both Oil Change International's original research and the Bank's own analysis show that none of the Bank's coal or oil lending for the last two years have prioritized increasing energy access.

Elizabeth Bast of Oil Change International said: "Our analysis and the World Bank's are remarkably similar. Energy from the World Bank's coal and oil plants go to support big industry, not the world's poorest.... Not only do the poor suffer the climate impacts of increased fossil fuel emissions and impacts from local pollution, but they are also not receiving the energy from the same projects that damage their livelihoods. With so many in the world without energy, the World Bank must prioritize investments that ensure increased energy access for the poor instead of prioritizing fossil fuel projects for industrial use."

Some key findings from the report include:
 * None of the 26 fossil fuel projects reviewed clearly identify access for the poor as a direct target of the project.
 * The World Bank Group and the report authors agree that no coal or oil projects can be classified as improving energy access for the poor.
 * In FY2009 and FY2010, funding for upstream fossil fuel projects and fossil fuel power plants dwarfed World Bank spending on access projects by 225 percent, or $7.2 billion compared to $3.2 billion for access (according to the Bank's own assessment, which Oil Change International notes includes two questionable gas projects).

The International Energy Agency has suggested that to achieve universal energy access for the world’s poorest, 70 percent of the additional energy would come from decentralized energy systems, which are often fueled by renewable power.

Environmentalists Oppose World Bank Loan to Eskom in South Africa
In late February 2010, climate change activists and concerned individuals from about the world expressed concern that the World Bank would fund new coal-fired power stations proposed by the South African government-owned utility, Eskom. One of the projects is the Medupi power station, a 4800 megawatt plant under construction in Lephalale in the country's northern region of Limpopo.

Groups opposing the project, which includes Climate Justice Now, groundWork and the Federation for a Sustainable Environment, vowed to pressure country directors within the World Bank to vote against the loan and also said they would revive the World Bank "bond boycott" that was launched last decade to end structural adjustment programs and anti-environmental project funded by the Bank.

Inger Andersen, World Bank's director for sustainable development in Africa, said the loan would support the "responsible use of coal as an interim resource for power generation, given lack of viable alternatives". The opposition groups countered, that if granted, the loan would destroy the image the World Bank is portraying of a climate-friendly financier. In order to power the new coal plants, over 40 new mines would have to be opened up in the region. The proposed plants would also increase utility rates to consumers. Large environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have signed on to a petition that opposes the loan.

On March 8, 2010 it was announced that the UK and US threatened to withhold support for a World Bank loan intended to help South Africa build the new coal-fired power station. The UK and US opposed to the loan because they believe it will make it harder for South Africa to deliver emission cuts.

On April 8, 2010 the World Bank voted to approve a $3.75 billion loan as requested by the South African government. The United States abstained from voting on the measure. It was the first World Bank loan to the country since the fall of Apartheid in the mid-1990s.

Critics, however, were not pleased with the World Bank's decision to fund the coal plant, even though the loan had provisions for other energy technologies like wind and solar. "I think it's pretty clear the World Bank is telling the people of South Africa that they're not taking their commitments to alleviating poverty and climate change seriously," said Mark Kresowik, corporate accountability and finance representative for the Sierra Club's 'Beyond Coal' campaign. Other countries that abstained from the vote included the U.K., Netherlands and Italy.

WB considers new rules to limit loans for fossil fuel projects
Under proposed new rules released in April 2011, only the very poorest countries would be eligible to receive grants or loans for building new coal-fired power stations from the World Bank, and then only if they could prove they were necessary and that alternatives – such as renewable energy – were not feasible. The proposed rules were in response to criticisms over the bank spending £3.4bn – one-quarter of all its spending on energy projects – on coal-fired power in developing countries in the year to June 2010. That was 40 times more than the sum spent five years previously. The bank has also been attacked for its attempts to take over the international funding of climate change projects. Under the 2009 Copenhagen accord, the bank could be charged with dispensing the billions of funding that rich countries are due to send to poor countries, in order to help them cope with the effects of climate change and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The new proposals are likely to take months to be accepted.

Protest against WB financing of India's Tata Plant
In May 2011, a group known as Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Sangathan (MASS) filed a collective protest against the Mundra Ultra Mega Power Project, saying there are high risks to the project without proper mitigation and accountability measures. The protest is targeted against the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private sector lending arm, whose financing of coal plants in India faces community resistance. Its Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) accepted a complaint against the Plant in Mundra, Gujarat. CAO is the independent body of IFC that handles disputes and compliance issues with its investments.

MASS says the plant is located in the special economic zone (SEZ) that cuts across fishing grounds, habitat of diverse marine lives, and wide expanses of farm land, and that the project’s social impact assessment is significantly flawed, as fishing communities were excluded from the list of those directly impacted and IFC green lighted the loan without a cumulative impact assessment.

With a total project cost of US$ 4.14 billion, the IFC is investing a $450 million loan and $50 million in equity. Other financial institutions funding the project are the Export-Import Bank of Korea, Asian Development Bank, India Infrastructure Finance Co. Ltd., Housing and Urban Development Corporation Ltd., Oriental Bank of Commerce, Vijaya Bank, State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Travancore, the State Bank of Indore and other local banks.

The MASS complaint came two months after villagers in Odisha state formally challenged IFC’s funding for the GMR Kamalanga Energy Limited.

Perspectives on the World Bank
A Latin American view is provided on 20 November 2003 by Oscar Ugarteche. Pontifical Catholic University of Peru excerpts therefrom:
 * The debt issue has returned to remind humanity that the solutions posed during the 1980s have been to no avail.
 * The consequence of this on the result of the world can be viewed in the failure of the promises made by the IMF/WB and other orthodox economists that assured that the implementation of what we know as neoliberal polices would result in an increase in the rate of growth, a reduction of external credit dependence, a surplus in trade and an increase in domestic savings. The conditions set for this were that the developing countries follow the ten points indicated by the Washington Consensus plus one further point added by the Theory of Public Choice in terms of reducing the State to as little as possible. Williamson stated recently that he did not appreciate that as a recommendation in the list of the policies to be pursed, which had consensus in 1989. The reduction of the State is present in the 1987 World Development Report of the WB as part of the set of policies that were later discussed for the Consensus.
 * The debt problems must be then seen as an instrument for the introduction of policies and an extortion of Governments into following them
 * This requires a reform of the WB/IMF and a change in their charters, were respect to human rights in all its dimensions come in front. Their failure during the 1980s and 1990s as well as their support of dictatorships in the name of the neutrality of technicians and efficiency, warrants the request for the reform of these institutions. They passed from Project based lending to Policy based lending in the mid 1980s without recognizing their failure in project based lending and the problems they had generated with them. The next step is from Policy based lending to Human rights based lending with recognition of the mistakes made and the failure of the promise to be made real. The existing globalization resulting from these are rejected en masse in the streets everywhere.
 * The race to the bottom in wages in order to compete with China must be put to an end with a specialization in each country that complements the order lines of production existing in the country, thus creating cluster economies for the benefit of domestic capital accumulation. Wages must be brought in line with the fight against poverty. Miserable wages produce misery.

Personnel

 * Paul D. Wolfowitz President of the World Bank
 * Sergio Jellinek World Bank Communications Advisor
 * Kristalina Georgieva - Vice President
 * Eija Pehu

Associated Organizations

 * Global Alliance for Workers and Communities, a partnership comprising the World Bank, corporations, and the International Youth Foundation

SourceWatch Resources

 * free trade
 * globalization
 * privatization
 * International Monetary Fund
 * Imperial terror in South America
 * Global insurgency for change
 * World Bank and climate change
 * Eugene Rotberg - former treasurer
 * AIDS Campaign Team for Africa
 * South Africa and coal

Critical Books

 * Catherine Caufield, Masters of Illusion: The World Bank and the Poverty of Nations (Macmillan, 1997).
 * Michael Goldman, Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Social Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization (Yale University Press, 2005).

General

 * Bank Watch - The World Bank's Democratic Deficit
 * Critiques of World Bank Policies in relation to Forest Peoples, Forest Peoples Programme
 * World Bank Boycott, International Grassroots Campaign
 * Debt Burden and World Bank
 * Relationship of Fractional Reserve, Compound Interest Banking and Third World Debt
 * Financial institute Wiki

2004

 * "World Bank Funnels Taxpayer Funds for Poverty Reduction to Halliburton and Big Oil," Institute for Policy Studies (Common Dreams), April 22, 2004.
 * Emad Mekay, "Poorest Pay for World Bank Corruption - US Senator," Inter Press Service (Common Dreams), May 14, 2004.
 * Chris Lang, "The carbon spin doctors: How the World Bank explains emissions trading to journalists", WRM Bulletin, Issue Number 84, July 2004.

2005

 * John Cavanagh, "Top 10 Reasons Why Paul Wolfowitz Would Make a Good World Bank President," Institute for Policy Studies (Common Dreams), March 4, 2005.
 * David Corn, "Wolfowitz To Rule the World (Bank)," The Nation (Common Dreams), March 15, 2005.
 * Adam Entous, "Bush Taps Hardliner Wolfowitz as New World Bank President," Reuters (Common Dreams), March 16, 2005.
 * Jim Lobe, "Wolfowitz Pick for World Bank Prompts Head-Scratching," Inter Press Service (Common Dreams), March 17, 2005.
 * Julian Borger, "Don't Deposit Wolfowitz with Us, Plead World Bank Workers," The Guardian (UK) (Common Dreams), March 19, 2005.
 * Elizabeth Sullivan, "Now Wolfowitz is Laughing All the Way to the World Bank," Cleveland Plain Dealer (Common Dreams), March 20, 2005.
 * Charlie Cray, "Wolfowitz and the World Bank: Democratizer or Kleptocrat?" Common Dreams, March 31, 2005.
 * Abid Aslam, "Wolfowitz Approved as World Bank Chief; Groups Protest 'One-Horse Race'," OneWorld.net (Common Dreams), April 2, 2005.
 * Njoki Njoroge Njehu and Leslie Cagan, "Wolfowitz’s Move to the World Bank Presidency and the Sharpening of Economic Policy as a Weapon of Mass Impoverishment," Common Dreams, May 31, 2005.
 * Arthur MacEwan, "New Man at the World Bank," Common Dreams, June 8, 2005.

2006

 * Matthew Rothschild, "Bush Wants to Make IMF and World Bank Even Worse," The Progressive (Common Dreams), March 25, 2006.
 * "Corruption Exposed At World Bank. GAP Again Calls for Adoption of Internal World Bank Whistleblower Plan After Four-Month US News & World Report Investigation Exposes Widespread Wrongdoing," Common Dreams, March 27, 2006.

2007

 * Emad Mekay, "Wolfowitz Accused of Nepotism at World Bank," Inter Press Service (Common Dreams), April 6, 2007.
 * Johann Hari, "The Real Scandal At The World Bank. The Bank is Killing Thousands of the Poorest People in The World," The Independent (UK) (Common Dreams), April 26, 2007.
 * Naomi Klein, "Sacrificial Wolfie," The Nation (Common Dreams), April 27, 2007.
 * Emad Mekay, "Charges of Dishonesty Fly at World Bank," Inter Press Service (Common Dreams), May 4, 2007.
 * Thalif Deen, "Population Policy: NGOs Warn of World Bank 'Fundamentalists'," Inter Press Service (Common Dreams), May 8, 2007.
 * Steven R. Weisman, "World Bank Panel Finds Wolfowitz at Fault; Aide Resigns," New York Times (Common Dreams), May 8, 2007.
 * Emad Mekay, "Wolfowitz Scandal Spotlights US Reign at Bank," Inter Press Service (Common Dreams), May 16, 2007.
 * "Tony Blair, Bill Frist Floated As Possible Wolfowitz Replacements At World Bank," Think Progress, May 18, 2007.

2008

 * "The World Bank's Climate Investment Funds," Greenpeace web page